So finally got a chance to see Ender’s Game at The Crest last night. I haven’t read the book in some time, but reread it last year (I think?) in anticipation of this movie coming out.
Likes:
All the actors are well cast. Many are not given very much to do save a few lines or scenes, but even with big-name actors such as Harrison Ford and Ben Kingsley in the movie, it balances out well.
The special effects are also well done and convincing – it’s always a bit of a crapshoot with zero-grav stuff in movies (to me, anyway), even with the CGI you now see (as opposed to hidden wires used in the past). It can look too fake (e.g. all the stupid CGI guys running around in Attack of the Clones) or a bit too forced – but here it looks good and doesn’t overpower the plot trying to be ‘amazing’ or anything. By contrast with the recent Gravity, in which nearly the whole movie is in a zero-G environment (and done very, very well) – this movie still holds its own.
I was also glad they didn’t go out of their way to overdo the Formics (‘Buggers’) like was done in Starship Troopers several years ago. While I have quite a number of gripes (unrelated to CGI) about that movie, they really went overboard with bugs, bugs everywhere and making them as horrific and never-ending as possible. Here, they show them only briefly, mostly in spaceships and then the Hive Queen in a few scenes, and she/it is portrayed as a sympathetic figure, just like in the book.
Nitpicks and critical (incl. some spoilers, be forewarned)
OK, on with the usual complaining 🙂
1) They really took out too much of the book, despite Orson Scott Card being heavily involved in the movie’s production, writing, etc. You miss out on most of the alienation and isolation that leads to Ender acting out – you just see a few scenes or dialog that sets it up and then boom, he’s acting out. I also missed the extensive Battle School zero-G drills and wars that the book details at length, and his brother Peter only has one scene here (in the book, he’s not a major character so much as he’s a major influence throughout Ender’s experience, but you surely see a lot more of him there). And even his sister Valentine only has a few scenes herself, and she is arguably a bigger influence on Ender than Peter? And the “mind game” Ender plays on the tablet is much more detailed and longer in the book, and serves as an important backdrop for how the Hive Queen makes mental contact with him and gains his trust. They pay lip service to it here but treat it much more like a dream that he sees several times and then follows in the real world, and that doesn’t quite cut it.
2) They don’t discuss the whole issue of Ender being a Third (in the future, people must obtain permission to have kids, and almost nobody ever goes beyond a second kid, so Ender being a Third makes him stand out – not in a positive way – from the beginning of his life). It is mentioned once at dinner and that’s about it, and never really explained
3) The whole side plot of Valentine and Peter using their skill at debate over the world networks to influence society at large (and ultimately build Peter up into becoming The Hegemon, the world’s ruler) isn’t in this movie at all. Yet it plays a notable role in the book – I think at least a few minutes here and there could have helped add it?
It’s true that were you to include much of what I mention above as missing, you’d likely add at least an hour to the movie at minimum. But I think the story suffers here because of these omissions, and I’m hoping the moviemakers pulled a Peter Jackson and filmed extra footage that can be included on the DVD when released soon. The comparison I’m thinking of here was the second Lord of the Rings movie – The Two Towers. I didn’t like that movie near as much in the theater, because most of it was spent watching people run over mountains, run across meadows, run run run! When the DVD came out, the extended version included almost 40 min. more of plot and scenes that broke all that up much better and rounded out the story much nicer. I could see a similar result with Ender’s Game, provided they made that extra footage while filming the movie.
All in all, I liked the movie and think they did a good job, but it could have been great instead of just good had they included more. Maybe the DVD….?
candybowl